It is general practice when painting to clean paint brushes between uses, otherwise paint hardens on the brush and spoils the brush. Additionally it is quite important that the brushes be cleaned very thoroughly, otherwise the useful length of the bristles shortens considerably over time as a result of the build up of paint at the base of the bristles, rendering the paint brush in a progressively poorer condition and resulting in a reduced life of the brush.
Thoroughly cleaning a brush or other painting implement is a time consuming and tedious practice and frustrating where a brush is used for only a short while. Consequently the practice is often not performed satisfactorily.
Cleaning brushes can also be wasteful and polluting, often resulting in compounds that are relatively toxic, such as acrylics, from water based paints ending up in waterways. In the case of solvent based paints the use of solvents for the requisite multiple rinses of the brush is also undesirable because there is the additional problem of the disposal of solvents as well as the expense of purchasing the solvent.
In painting practice using water based paints, it is common to suspend brushes in a water bath keeping the handle free. This practice is unsatisfactory because water soaks into the brush and up the bristles so that when reused, despite vigorous efforts to dry the brush, a paint/water mixture will run down the upturned handle onto the hand of the user.
Additionally where the paint brush is to be transported such as will be the case with a tradesman, it is exceedingly difficult not to have the entire brush fall into the container when travelling between work sites.
It is also not adequate to have the brush sit in a rack that is located at the bottom of the paint container, or a container with water, because the bristles will assume a curved position as a result of resting on the base of the container, which will impact on the usefulness of the brush. Additionally the handle of the brush may be covered at least in part by paint which detracts from the usefulness of such a practice. There is a need for free access to paint within the container so that the suggestion of a rack in the paint container itself is not an effective solution to the problem because access to paint within the container will at least in part be blocked.
A number of devices have been suggested for storage of brushes within paint tins to reduce the burden of cleaning and some of these suggestions are to hold the brush by using the lid. The closest known prior art to the present invention is disclosed in Australian patent specification AU12242/92 in the name of Azoulay. The disclosure of this document relates to a storage container lid with an aperture therethrough so that the handle is gripped within an upwardly extending collar by a resilient insert which can close around the handle of the paint brush. The arrangement of the Azoulay disclosure requires a number of parts which need assembly and is consequently relatively complex in operation and construction.